I Don't Have a Choice, But I Still Choose You
by LiveinLivingColor
Summary: You think about how bright and big and fresh New York City is. How the two of you could start over, where no one knows anything about you or Alison or your families. But then, you think that maybe you don't want to start over. Season 2 Summer Finale.


It's been three days.

One of them was spent in the interrogation room, with the mud still caked on your skin and your dress, which you refuse to ever look at again, crinkled and tight. The police had decided that although it didn't make sense for you to be in possession of the shovel, they couldn't hold you for it. You told them time and time again that you'd never seen it before, and since they couldn't actually place you with it during Alison's murder all that time ago, they reluctantly had to let you go. You sit in the back seat of your parents' car in silence, and wonder whether they came because they were worried about you, or worried about how you would make the family look now.

You get home and take of your dress, stuffing it in the bottom of your hamper. You don't want to look at it anymore- it makes you feel guilty. Guilty for letting Wren kiss you, for not pushing him away. He didn't mean a thing to you, but you'd let it happen regardless, and that made you feel horrible enough. Guilty for walking away when Toby called out to you in the police station, even though you didn't have a choice.

"_I feel like we always have a choice_."

You think about this morning, and how he was unequivocally right. You might have been threatened and you might have needed to do it for Dr. Sullivan, wherever the hell she was right now, but you could have done it another way. You wish you could have articulated it better. You wish you could have told him that you'd choose him, over and over, any time.

You get in the shower and turn the dial all the way towards hot, letting it scald you a little, leaving your skin red and blotchy. You think you deserve it now. And you can't help but crave the burn, because after feeling numb since you ran from Toby's truck, pain is better than nothing. You think maybe if you focus on that, you'll stop thinking about everything else. That backfires, and you end up sliding down the shower wall, sobbing into your knees with the water spraying you in the face and the mud swirling down the drain.

Eventually, you pick yourself up. You sit in your bed and check your phone, which has messages from all three of your friends confirming that you've made it home. But the one person you want to talk to, the one person who could make you feel any better about all of this, probably wouldn't answer you, so you curl into your blankets. You don't turn out the lights. You don't sleep.

Day two is your mother forcing you to come downstairs to eat, but you retreat back upstairs the first chance you get. You don't want to go outside. Your friends send you a message to meet at Hanna's, because none of you have slept and you need each other right now. But you lie and tell them that your parents won't let you out. You've been doing a lot of that lately- lying. You hate that the one you regret most is one you were forced into by someone you couldn't even identify, but who had the power to ruin your whole life.

By day three, you've had time to think, and you're tired. Tired of running, tired of clinging to tiny clues and chasing empty theories. You're just done, and you want out. You're tired of playing the game. So you pack up a bag and buy a bus ticket to New York City, planning to leave when your parents are both at work. You don't know what you'll tell your friends, or where you're going to stay, but being here is suffocating you. It makes you feel helpless, and that's not an emotion you welcome.

But as you're walking out the door, you stop on your front steps and look at the phone that you're gripping in one hand.

"_Do me a favor. If you ever get the urge to run away, call me first."_

You try to push that thought away, because if you call him, you're bringing yourself and all of the baggage you come with back into his life. You're putting him back in danger, and he doesn't deserve that from you. But your finger hovers over the call button anyway, because a promise is a promise. And you might have broken a lot of those, but this is one you owe to him to keep.

When he answers, his voice is soft and tired. You wonder if you woke him, but then you remember it's three in the afternoon. Maybe he's tired in a different way. Tired like you.

"Hi."

You hate that all you can say is "hi", when there are ten thousand other things you should be saying.

"What…why are you calling?"

You aren't used to the harsh tone he's giving you, and it makes a lump form in your throat.

"I just…" You trail off. You don't have a reason. You have a million reasons. None of it is making sense in your head and you aren't used to this, because normally you have all the answers. Normally you can solve all the problems, but this isn't in your grasp. "I just needed to talk to you."

"Now you want to talk to me. Not in the police station, though."

You cringe. "Toby, I couldn't. You know I would have if I could. You know me. You know I wanted to be able to turn around."

"I thought I knew you. I thought you trusted me. But I guess I was wrong."

"You weren't wrong! There's just…there's so much I need to explain, and it wasn't safe to do it then. There was just too much you needed to know and I couldn't tell you."

"I've always told you you could tell me anything. You knew that."

"I know, but…it's more complicated than that. It wasn't up to me."

You hear him sigh on the other end. "Okay. But I'm here now, so tell me what I need to know."

You take a deep breath. "There are things that I can't tell you yet, things that have been going on for awhile. Things just got so much more out of hand than I thought, and so much went wrong. I thought I could fix them without hurting you, but then I didn't have a choice. What I said in the truck, that wasn't me. It wasn't true. I did trust you, I _do_ trust you, or I wouldn't be calling, but I had to do it to keep you safe."

"Keep me safe from what?"

You want to cry out of frustration now, because you _just can't. _"That's just it, I don't know. I can't tell you who because I don't know. This is just…I'm sorry. There's so much that doesn't make sense and I wish it did, but it's not that simple."

Your head hurts now. You're trying so hard to try and explain, but this has been going on for so long that it's impossible now. And the last time you told someone about A, you got sent on the whirlwind that caused this whole mess with Toby in the first place, and you aren't willing to risk that again.

"Listen, I know I'm not making any sense. And I wish I could tell you everything but if I do, something terrible could happen to you. That's why I did this in the first place, to protect you. You aren't going to take the punishment for what I do anymore. "

"Spencer…" his voice is softer now, because he does know you, and he can tell that you're having a hard time trying to articulate. He knows that never happens, and that something has to be really, really complicated for you to get flustered by it. He knows that you don't do things without a reason. So a part of you hopes that he gets it. That somehow, in all of the rambling and confusion coming out of you right now, he's picked up something. You hope that he understands that even if you can't explain it all, you did it for him. You did it to keep him safe.

"When I said that we happened to you, I meant it. You didn't ask for any of this. And this isn't going to end anytime soon, so I need you to keep yourself out of trouble. And doing that means staying away from me, because it's bigger than me, and you deserve better."

"I might not totally understand what's going on right now, but when your parents were telling you to stay away from me back when you were a person of interest, did you?"

You swallow. "No."

"Why?"

"Because I didn't care what anyone else thought? Because I knew that I was innocent even if no one else did, and you believed me. Because you treated me like a normal human being instead of a murder suspect." You pause. "You were all I had. But that didn't matter, because you were all I wanted, too."

He waits for a while before responding. "You know as well as I do that we both have a hell of a lot of baggage, but that didn't matter then. Why is it any different now? I knew what I was signing up for, Spencer, and I thought you got that. When I said I loved you, I meant it. And I didn't care about the bad things that could have happened, because I thought you felt the same way."

"I do!" You're even more frustrated, because you're trying so hard to make this make sense, but it just doesn't. "I do feel the same way, it's not about that."

You sit on your porch steps and run a hand through your hair. Your head is throbbing now.

"I get what you're trying to do. I've been in that police station more than I'd ever like to count, and I know what it feels like to think that you're hurting everyone around you for something you didn't even do. You think that if you just cut yourself out of their lives, everyone else will be better off. But they get hurt anyway, Spencer. They get hurt whether you're around or not. And you have to figure out whether it's worth it to stay. Whether you have a reason to stick it out that outweighs the worrying."

He pauses. "And I've always thought you were worth it. I was willing to fight for you, fight for us. Whether you are or not is up to you."

You start to wonder how he seems to understand what you're feeling better than you do. The two of you sit in silence on your ends of the phone line, and you are comforted by the fact that he lets the silence sit there and doesn't hang up on you. He lets you think. He always lets you think.

"Toby…" You take in a shaky breath, "Why did you answer the phone?"

It takes him a few seconds to answer. "Because I might have been hurt by what you said, but I knew something wasn't right about it. It didn't sit right with me. It wasn't you, and that's why I went to the station after you. I knew that you had to have a reason. And I know what it's like to have a reason when no one's willing to hear it."

The understanding, the way that he just seems to get what you have so much trouble trying to articulate all the time, this is one of the reasons that you love him. You don't do feelings. It isn't something you talk about in your family, but with him, it's different. He doesn't let you get away with putting up walls, and in that moment, when he hasn't hung up on you, when he hasn't given up quite yet, you decide to fight for it, too. You decide that you aren't willing to let A win without a fight, because some things, these things, are worth fighting for.

"You know, I didn't really even call you to explain at first."

He speaks slowly when he says, "Then why did you call?"

"Because I was going to leave. I have a bus ticket and everything, and…you told me to call you first, remember?" Your face is heating up, because what if he doesn't remember ever saying that? What if he wasn't as serious as you'd thought. You start to feel silly for making assumptions.

"Where were you going to go?"

He hasn't answered your question, and that scares you.

"New York. Why?"

"Because when I said that, I wanted you to call so I could convince you to stay. But now….do you think they have another open seat on that bus? I've never been to New York."

You only start to cry when you can hear in his voice that he's smiling. It's the first time in days that someone's said anything remotely resembling a joke, and even though you know he's partly serious, you feel ten thousand times lighter.

You laugh a little through the tears and shake your head. "We're so messed up, you know that, right?"

"Alone? Yeah. But together, it's not so bad, is it?"

It's not. And you figure out then that no matter what you do, A is still going to torture you. Running away isn't going to make it disappear, and if you have to deal with it anyway, you might as well not be doing it alone. You're done being afraid, and you're done running. You're ready, now, to fight. And not just for Toby, but for everything. You might be done playing the game, but it doesn't mean you're forfeiting. It means you're going to win, whatever it takes.

"No, it's not. But you…there's still a lot you don't know, Toby."

"I know. But I know what matters, and I know that you'd tell me if you could. I trust you. I trust that you'll tell me when you can."

You sigh. "I love you, you know that?"

He laughs a little. "I know."

"I know that I didn't say it back that day with the truck, or at the police station, but I do. I've never said that to anyone before and I tried so hard to make it perfect, but we both know nothing with us is ever perfect, and-"

"Spencer." He stops you before you can get into one of your rants. "I know."

He knows. He knows what matters. You look at the bus ticket on your lap, slightly crumpled now, and think about how bright and big and fresh New York City is. How the two of you could start over, where no one knows anything about you or Alison or your families. But then, you think that maybe you don't want to start over. Because running away means A wins.

You've always wanted to be perfect. The perfect daughter, the perfect student, the perfect friend. But if the past few months have taught you anything, it's that a lot of the time, things don't go the way you've planned, and you have to accept that about your life. You have to accept that no matter how high your GPA is, how may goals you score, how many other peoples' problems you try to solve, that isn't what really matters most. And sitting here, with the comfortable silence that's fallen over the phone line- you've always been able to understand each other without saying much- maybe making this choice, maybe this moment, this is as close to perfect as you're going to get.


End file.
